DIY cheap lens compendium with pipe-cleaners & velvet?

[dh003i]

Thinking about lens compendiums, I had the idea that maybe you could make a cheap DIY adjustable one with pipe-cleaners and velvet material.

Here's a poor sketch of what this would look like (http://www.tabblo.com/studio/stories/shared/32863/jncky9b1shfwglq). Basically, the pipe-cleaners provide the support for the compendium, and you would sow velvet onto them with the black side facing inward. Or maybe you could just use pipe-cleaners for a small "hinge" part at the part of it that would go over the lens, then use something rigid to extend out to the outer part of the compendium.

Thoughts?

[D. Bryant]

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Thoughts?

Use a dark slide to shield your lens.

[IanG]

Looks like a light shade to me :D Just buy a small one and spray matt black.

Ian

[dh003i]

Yes, it is like a lens shade, but adjustable. A lens shade can't block off all non-image-forming light, because it has to allow for movements of the lens.

[Robert Hughes]

Use a dark slide to shield your lens.
I use a dark slide to shield my film. Double duty!

[Gem Singer]

A true compendium is the shape of the format, rectangular, not round. Your design is a lens shade.

A round lens shade will not block out all of the extraneous light and will vignette if it's length is excessive.

[dh003i]

A true compendium is the shape of the format, rectangular, not round. Your design is a lens shade.

A round lens shade will not block out all of the extraneous light and will vignette if it's length is excessive.

Thanks. With what you said in mind, I think it would be an easy modification to the design, with 4 trapezoidal shapes on all four sides, forming a square when touching on the outer side.

[Brian Ellis]

With all due respect to those who suggest using a dark slide, that's a reasonable compromise between doing nothing and using a compendium shade but IMHO it isn't the best solution. A dark slide will shield the lens from direct sunlight that strikes the lens but it won't do anything for indirect light, especially on a cloudy/overcast type day when all the light striking the lens is indirect, diffused light. If a dark slide did as good a job as a compendium shade nobody would buy a compendium shade.

[Vick Vickery]

Its amazing what you can make lens hoods out of in a pinch! I've made them out of cheap tin funnels, spray-paint can tops, small boxes, and tin cans at various times. Now I have a compendium for my Cambo, a bellows for my Hasselblad lenses, and a little clamp-on barn-door setup that fits pretty much any len that measures 2 3/4" or less across...and I still end up using my hat or a darkslide much of the time! :)

[Doug Dolde]

Maybe you could use a cigar box with a hole in it for a camera. Is your middle name "Cheap"?

[dh003i]

Yes, my middle name is "cheap". From what I understand, the compendiums sold don't offer any advantage over a barn-door DIY compendiums. See Robert Zeichner's article on making a Barndoor Shade (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?p=276161).

He uses the Barn Doors from a Pepper 100 fresnel light, but that's too small for my 90/4.5 lens, so I'd need a Pepper 200. That goes for $200. Then there's Tiffen Adapter's I'd need.

Also, I have a Linhof Kardan Supercolor. I haven't seen any compendiums available for it.

[Jim Cole]

Maybe you could use a cigar box with a hole in it for a camera. Is your middle name "Cheap"?

That's a fairly cheap shot there, Doug.

[Vick Vickery]

Doug...I've been accused of being cheap before..."where theres smoke..." :) I will admit, most of the home-made jobs were while I was in college (TOO MANY years ago to admit) and had no extra money at all, but I like to think that I'm a tinkerer who can't stand to waste anything.

My wife thinks I'm just cheap! :):)

[brian mcweeney]

Perhaps you could use some cinefoil, it's heavy-weight black foil. I make flags and snoots out of it for my lighting, perhaps you could shape a shade out of it.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

Yes, my middle name is "cheap". From what I understand, the compendiums sold don't offer any advantage over a barn-door DIY compendiums. See Robert Zeichner's article on making a Barndoor Shade (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?p=276161).

He uses the Barn Doors from a Pepper 100 fresnel light, but that's too small for my 90/4.5 lens, so I'd need a Pepper 200. That goes for $200. Then there's Tiffen Adapter's I'd need.

Also, I have a Linhof Kardan Supercolor. I haven't seen any compendiums available for it.

The LTM 4 leaf barndoor for the Pepper 200 is part number PA-A395 and I believe it retails for $79. I don't know what filter size your 90 f4.5 lens takes, but if by chance it is a Nikkor SW, I think it's 82mm. If that's the case you would need a Tiffen 82M9 adapter. But that said, you may run into other issues putting this contraption on such a wide lens. My guess is that it will vignette. You might try getting a Tiffen 82mm to 4-1/2" round adapter and use some minature hinges and barn doors cut from balsa wood and sprayed black to make a shade similar to the one in my article. The hinges could be glued to the filter adapter and the barndoors to the hinges with with some PC7 2 part epoxy.

[D. Bryant]

With all due respect to those who suggest using a dark slide, that's a reasonable compromise between doing nothing and using a compendium shade but IMHO it isn't the best solution. A dark slide will shield the lens from direct sunlight that strikes the lens but it won't do anything for indirect light, especially on a cloudy/overcast type day when all the light striking the lens is indirect, diffused light. If a dark slide did as good a job as a compendium shade nobody would buy a compendium shade.

Well a dark slide worked well enough for photographers such as Morley Baer.

[toyotadesigner]

I'm using two clamps which I connected with a long screw. One clamp is clipped onto the front standard, the other one holds a rectangular shaped matte black Kapa board.

Works absolutely fantastic if you have to shade your lens from the sun. If there is a spot or reflective light bottom/left/right I just clip the double clamp to that side of the front standard.

Lousy image made with my web cam (sorry, I don't have a digicam):

http://www.sacalobra.com/samples/lens-shade.jpg

[dh003i]

The LTM 4 leaf barndoor for the Pepper 200 is part number PA-A395 and I believe it retails for $79. I don't know what filter size your 90 f4.5 lens takes, but if by chance it is a Nikkor SW, I think it's 82mm. If that's the case you would need a Tiffen 82M9 adapter. But that said, you may run into other issues putting this contraption on such a wide lens. My guess is that it will vignette. You might try getting a Tiffen 82mm to 4-1/2" round adapter and use some minature hinges and barn doors cut from balsa wood and sprayed black to make a shade similar to the one in my article. The hinges could be glued to the filter adapter and the barndoors to the hinges with with some PC7 2 part epoxy.

Thank you very much Robert, I was a little bit unclear on that part. I thought you had to purchase the fresnel light to get the barn door! Yes, I do have the Nikkor-SW 90/4.5. I'm not sure if it vignettes. Assuming a 4 x 5 sqin film area, here's the calculated angles of view (http://imaginatorium.org/stuff/angle.htm):

AOV (width): 70° 25'
AOV (height): 58° 53'
AOV (diagonal): 84° 12'

Assuming a 3.75 x 4.75 sqin usable area (what I determined from my measurements of the film-holder:

AOV (width): 67° 40'
AOV (height): 55° 46'
AOV (diagonal): 80° 60'

So the barn door would have to allow for at least 67 degrees of clearance to the right and left, and at least 55 degrees up and down, but possibly as much as 70 and 58, respectively.

Btw, do you happen to have a PDF copy of that article you wrote? I found a text-copy you attached to another thread, but I remember running across it before on the Internet, as a formatted PDF (or scanned in) copy of the article somewhere.

Then the price ends up going to $72 for the 4 Leaf Barndoor For LTM Pepper 200W, 300W, 420W, PA-A395 (http://www.filmandvideolighting.com/4lebaforltmp.html); and $99 for the Tiffen Step-Up Ring (http://www.filmtools.com/tistupri82to.html). I'm not sure if it would vignette. Other parts -- clips, velvet paper, scrungie -- are all cheap. But then it ends up being above $171, getting towards the price of a compendium (I suppose there isn't much alternatives, except for my el-cheapo idea, and toyotadesigner's idea).

[Dave Brown]

Here's what I do: a Bronica ETR compendium, and a bunch of step up rings. With everyone dumping their medium format gear, these things are relatively inexpensive (a quick search shows KEH has a bellows lens hood for a Mamiya 645 for $35). 6 x 4.5 has an aspect ratio that's pretty close to 4 x 5 and 8 x 10, and if you're a perfectionist, there is a slot in the front where you can insert a mask. You may have to use two or three step up rings to attach it to the lens, but it works. The downside is it won't work with some of my wider lenses; their filter threads are too large.

[dh003i]

When making adjustments with your compendium, if you keep the standards parallel, it should be in the shape of a 4:5 or 5:4 square.

But what if you use front or rear tilt? In that case, should you make it the shape of a trapezoid (because then part of the film plane is further away from the front standard than the other part)?

[Sascha Welter]

Was thinking about this thread this morning. I had gone up to a hill opposite the Akropolis and in one of the images I was pointing the camera almost directly into the sun.

http://betabug.ch/ouzo/images/camera_docu/small/need_a_better_compendium.jpg

I have a compendium shade for my camera, but it's not very adjustable. Especially it doesn't take camera shifts into account. I improvised an extension with a little bag (originally made for cosmetics), which I use to protect the my wide angle in transport. Stuck it on with some tape. It was pure coincidence that I had the tape in my camera bag.

http://betabug.ch/ouzo/images/camera_docu/small/improvised_compendium_front.jpg

http://betabug.ch/ouzo/images/camera_docu/small/improvised_compendium.jpg

Luck has it that the little bag was black on one side, not pink like on the other. I'll get some black cardboard and some little clamps into my standard set of tools to carry in my camera bag now.

Something like the pipe cleaner compendium of the OP would have worked well :-)

(Sorry for terrible mobile phone pixx, it's difficult to picture my camera with my camera.)

[mdm]

Here is my attempt at a shade using a generic Cokin P style sysyetm. I riveted 6cm strip of HDPE around the generic shade ring, 6cm is the longest I could make it with maximum rise in Portrait orientation with my best lens. I expect to use it like this most but for luck made a set of masks to cut out nearly all except image forming light. My camera does not have shift so rise and fall is all that is required of the masks.
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